‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ said Emmy Lou, entering Pritzi’s looking sweaty and harassed. ‘How can they treat us like that, it’s so insulting, I felt like a burglar being photographed, not good-morning even, just “left profile right profile straight ahead”, bastards.’

Frances only said, ‘I bought you a coffee, just tell them what you want,’ and Emmy Lou smiled gratefully, dumped her bag, went to the counter where the cappuccino machine whizzed and steamed.

They dismissed the advert from their conversation, and Emmy Lou laughed when she noticed Frances’ stuffed bra (how good she can look when she laughs, thought Frances). Soon they were poring over the Standard and the fuzzy black and white photo of Terence going into the court the previous day, looking away from the camera.

‘What an extraordinary thing,’ said Frances. ‘How could he be so stupid, perhaps he was drunk, well he’s often drunk, he was very drunk when we left the reunion – I thought he was actually behaving very oddly, I said, didn’t I? Sort of manic, more than drunk.’ And suddenly she remembered. ‘I saw him, I saw him driving Simone Taylor, they passed my taxi just after you got out, I’d forgotten.’

‘Simone Taylor! He’d hardly have had to rape her.’

‘No, course not, she’d rape him. But...’ she paused, puzzled, ‘...it doesn’t sound like him does it.’

‘You know that time I played his Lady Macbeth, whoops –’ she knew it was bad luck to mention Macbeth, but only inside a theatre, a coffee bar shouldn’t matter ‘– in our last term and everyone said how brilliant I was?’

‘You were brilliant, it was an extraordinary performance.’

‘Well the reason I was so good,’ said Emmy Lou, ‘was that I was so besotted by him that I actually wanted him to be King – King of Scotland, England, the world, Mars – anything; he used to kiss me backstage every night!’ They both laughed over their cappuccinos.

‘Oh poor Terence we shouldn’t laugh, poor guy, what a drip I was.’ She stared down at more photographs and at the story of the Reunion (which had now reached the status of a capital letter) rehashed again.

It is believed that Juliet Lyall (56), who stars in the hit production of The Seagull in the West End, was also present at the London Academy of Drama Reunion, as was Anthony Bonham, at present playing Iago in Othello at Stratford-upon-Avon. Ms Lyall was today unavailable for comment. It is understood that Mr Blue’s third ex-wife, the film actress Iona Spring (25), from whom he was recently divorced, has been contacted in Los Angeles.

‘That appalling Iona Spring’ll be glad of the publicity,’ said Frances, re-reading the list of Terence’s films and his three wives’ brief biographies:

Betty Bailey, actress.

Elvira Pugh, crime-writer.

Iona Spring, actress.